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Monday, 5 November 2012

Pat Esden's Hook, Line & Sinker Success Story!

Another Hook, Line & Sinker success story? HELLZ YES.

I am so excited to announce that Pat Esden has signed with Pooja Menon of Kimberley Cameron & Associates! Pat's entry for MOONHILL got a lot of agenty attention in the contest, so I'm over the moon (and not at all surprised!) that she is now officially an agented author.

CONGRATULATIONS, PAT!

Of course, I immediately asked Pat for the lowdown...

First of all, please tell us what
MOONHILL is about.

MOONHILL is a YA contemporary gothic tale about Anie Freemont,
a seventeen-year-old antique dealer. Anie’s never believed the stories her
father told about their ancestral home, Moonhill. Mystical rings which eat
souls, genies in jars . . . she figured the frightening tales were simply
another of her antique-dealing papa’s eccentricities. That is, until he’s
diagnosed with dementia and a court order forces her to take him back to
Moonhill and the estranged family they fled when she was three years old.

All Anie wants is to help her father get stabilized so they
can leave as fast as possible. But from the moment they arrive, she’s isolated
from him by their family. She notices disturbing things too, including
human-shaped shadows in Moonhill’s gallery and a witch’s pentagram under her
bed. When her father turns violent and Anie discovers he’s not seeing a doctor
like she was told, the deceit leads her to a decade-old mystery surrounding her
mother’s death in Moonhill’s graveyard. A mystery she must unravel if she wants
to help her father.

But to separate truth from tale, Anie will have to use all
the tricks she learned while dealing antiques with Papa to outwit a family who
prefers to keep her in the dark—and an entity which is far different than the
Christian demon she first suspects. If she fails, Papa will end up
institutionalized for life--and she may never escape Moonhill, unless it's in a
body bag like her mother.

Who or what inspired you to write it?

It was Johnny Depp and our shared love for the old TV series
Dark Shadows.

When I heard he was working with Tim Burton on a remake, it
struck me that having fun and creating something you’ve always wanted to try
was important to me as well. However, I didn’t have the desire to create a
campy remake of Dark Shadows. I
wanted to write a gothic novel which had an atmosphere reminiscent of the show and
to that of the classic mid-century gothic novels written by Phyllis Whitney,
Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt—but with an updated flare and sizzle to make it
appealing to the modern teen reader.

What made you decide to enter Hook, Line & Sinker?

In August I sent out queries to
agents who had read previous manuscripts of mine and asked to look at future
works, and to several who specifically liked gothic. While I was waiting to
hear back from them, I was also working on an under seventy-five word pitch for
Authoresses’ upcoming Baker’s Dozen contest. When I saw HLandS required a pitch
that was under sixty words, I thought I couldn’t do it. But it was a challenge
I couldn’t resist. Once I got the pitch where I wanted it, I was pretty much
compelled to enter—and I had never queried any of the agents in the HLandS
contest.

When Pooja made her offer of representation, how did The Call happen?

Like I said, I’d queried other
manuscripts. I’d waited over a year to hear back from agents and up to nine
months on several occasions. Pooja totally caught me off guard. When the last round of the contest went live,
she quickly requested fifty pages and a synopsis. A few hours later, I received
an energetic request for a full. Less than twenty-four hours after that, she
emailed me an offer of representation and asked if I’d like to chat on the
phone. It was an amazing relief to receive the offer before “The Call”. It also
made it easier to judge what a normal working relationship with Pooja would be
like, instead of worrying about whether I get an offer or not.

What's next for you?

Pooja has several new clients,
so I’m planning on working on a new project until she’s had a chance to go
through MOONHILL and get back to me with revision suggestions.

Actually, I think learning to
balance working on several projects at once is going to be my biggest writing
challenge over the months to come.

Thank you so much for hosting
the YA portion of the HLandS contest. It
was an amazing and life changing few weeks for me.

***

Brilliant answers, right?? Make sure you follow Pat for more news about MOONHILL!